


You Have Lived Your Life Dreaming You Were Someone Else

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Series: Identity [1]
Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom, X-Men: The Last Stand - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-05
Updated: 2011-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-25 17:36:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abandoned in the middle of nowhere, naked and human, Mystique walks and tries not to think.</p><p>Prequel to Homecoming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Have Lived Your Life Dreaming You Were Someone Else

**Author's Note:**

> Set during _X-Men: The Last Stand._
> 
> The title is from the song _Open Your Eyes_ by Asia.

When there wasn’t a role to be played, a strategic reason to hide, Mystique always flaunted her nudity.  
   
Naked as the day she was born, she walked around with her head up high and every inch of her shapely blue body on display, all lean muscles and blue scales, healthy and strong, but undeniably feminine.  
   
There were always those who stared wide-eyed, those who recoiled or whose glances darted away uncomfortably, but Mystique didn’t care. This was what she was, from her red hair and blue scales to her fierce yellow eyes, and she didn’t care what others thought. She had fought for this, and would continue to fight for this, and no one would stop her. This was what she was supposed to be, and if fools and bigoted idiots couldn’t stand the sight of her then _good_ , because it was about time someone rubbed the existence of people like her in their faces and forced them to confront it.  
   
Mystique found a kind of joy in their hostility and discomfort, because she would not allow the reality of who she was – the _integrity of self_ , as Erik had once put it – to falter under their disapproval and rejection. And if they looked away first – if they couldn’t look at her and accept what she was – then she was the one who had come out the stronger.  
   
Mystique had spent most of her life making herself strong.  
   
The person who was _Raven_ had been long pushed-aside, someone fragile and not strong at all, all softness and crippling self-doubt where Mystique was strong and hard and sharp as a knife’s edge.  
   
But now Mystique is _gone_ , like she never was, and some part of Raven wonders if maybe she _wasn’t,_ if maybe Mystique was just an elaborate shield to hide Raven from herself and everyone else.  
   
It’s a horrible, morbid, unstable thought, the product of a distraught mind, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t _true_. Raven doesn’t know.  
   
Raven is naked now, and for the first time in years there is no pride in it, because she’s weak and pale and soft and the air is _freezing_ against her bare skin.  
   
She’s been walking for hours and her legs are tired and sore, and the bottom of her feet hurt. They’ve been cut open from all the walking on hard-edged ground, as soft and easy to wound as the rest of her.  
   
She should have taken the clothes of one of the dead guards, but she spent too long sitting there in shock and devastation, and then she heard the trucks coming and there was no time to do anything but run and try to hide, and wait until they were all gone before she began to walk.  
   
Just the thought of it sets tears rolling down her face again, and she wipes at them angrily.  
   
She’d never realised it, but the scales had been a kind of armour, both emotional and physical, and she shouldn’t think about that, but if she doesn’t she’ll think of _Erik_ which would be a hundred times worse and she can’t stand to start those thoughts again.  
   
She just _can’t_.  
   
Raven thinks instead about the way the cold air has dulled the sensations of her skin and the throbbing agony of her feet and the feel of her hair against her shoulders and back, and the way the bones in her left ankle click and scrape against each other when she walks after catching her foot in a pothole a while back.  
   
She keeps walking, her mind turning dull and exhausted with pain and exertion and something that feels an awful lot like heartbreak, keeps putting one foot in front of the other without even thinking about it because she needs to keep going.  
   
She has no idea how much later it is when the distant sound of a car rouses her from this almost trance-like state. Even then she doesn’t stop walking, as the sound grows louder and louder until she heard the sound of the engine not far behind her.  
   
The intensity of the sound lowers a notch as the car slows. Raven keeps walking.  
   
The car pulls up beside her and stops, even though then engine is still going.  
   
“ _Oh my God_ , are you _alright?_ ”  
   
Raven blinks around at the car, where a young woman is staring at her in horrified concern through the driver’s window.  
   
Raven blinks some more.  
   
“No,” she says finally.  
   
“Oh my _God_ ,” the woman says again, opening the car door and climbing out without bothering to turn off the engine first. “Are you – I mean – hang on, I’ve got my gym clothes in the trunk still, I think, they should fit you, okay?”  
   
She hurries to the trunk and opens it, rummaging around for a minute before emerging with a tank top and a pair of shorts.  
   
Raven puts them on, because it’s better than nothing. Better than being naked.  
   
“Do you have somewhere to go?” the owner of the clothes asks, with a kind of flustered worry. “Is there someone I can call?”  
   
Raven thinks fleetingly of her brother, if she can even still call him that, but shakes her head. Even if she could, she knows there’s still a war on, and that Charles will be in the thick of it.  
   
“Shit,” says the woman. “Come on. I’ll – you can come with me for now, you can’t stay here. I’m – I mean – _God_.”  
   
Her distress is palpable, and she doesn’t seem to know how to deal with the picture Raven presents. It’s actually vaguely reassuring, in a painful kind of way.  
   
“Okay,” Raven says, because she’s so very, very tired, and climbs into the car.  
   
She falls asleep shortly after, while an Asia song plays softly on the radio.


End file.
